South Korea high court ruled death penalty constitutional

On February 25, 2010, South Korea's high court ruled that the death penalty does not violate the South Korean constitution. Capital punishment had been under an unofficial moratorium in the country since former president Kim Dae-Jung took office in 1998. Since the ruling, that suspension has continued and no one has been executed since the high court's decision. South Korea is one of only four developed, industrialized, democratic countries in the world with legalized executions, along with the US, Japan, and Taiwan.